


We Are the Shaken

by APgeeksout



Category: Sleepless Domain (Webcomic)
Genre: F/F, First Time, Happy Ending, Mildly Dubious Consent, Sex Pollen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-16
Updated: 2017-12-16
Packaged: 2019-02-15 10:07:04
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13028784
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/APgeeksout/pseuds/APgeeksout
Summary: “And I thought eye guys were bad,” she says. “Blech!”“Yuck,” Undine agrees. Her nose wrinkles up in a way that Kokoro definitely does not find cute, especially not when they're out on patrol and Alchemical Water is concentrating on their responsibilities, the way they both should be.





	We Are the Shaken

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GlassRain](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassRain/gifts).



“I think there's another. Over that way.” Undine points due North, toward a long, low building that, during the day, holds a nail salon and a vacuum repair shop and a tiny restaurant that sells bubble tea and ice cream. 

Behind tonight's version of the inner barrier it – along with everything else in the city – looks like another wing of Dolly Daisy's Dream Mansion. All the windows have turned a shimmery pastel green against walls of the same gleaming pale purple as the dollhouse Kokoro had put aside in favor of free-weights even years before the dream came to her. 

“Let's hit it!” she says, and breaks into an easy jog. Undine churns up a little jet of water to float along beside her and chuckles, like she knows that Kokoro means both that they should go check it out, and that when they get to whatever it is she's going to want to literally hit it. A bunch of times, if possible. 

They take to the rooftops to do a little recon first, and spot the monster near the edge of a fountain in the little plaza behind the row of shops. For some reason, the crawlies seem to like this place. Heartful Punch has killed a lot of things here over the years. 

None of them have looked quite like this one. It's a big blobby thing with a few ropy tendrils, its flesh purple-red like a fresh bruise, damp and bumpy like a swollen tongue. Its whole body pulses – almost as if in time with a heartbeat, even though she's pretty sure monsters mostly don't have hearts – and its thick little arms seem mostly intent on rubbing restlessly over its shapeless body. 

“And I thought eye guys were bad,” she says. “Blech!”

“Yuck,” Undine agrees. Her nose wrinkles up in a way that Kokoro definitely does not find cute, especially not when they're out on patrol and Alchemical Water is concentrating on their responsibilities, the way they both should be. 

“It's close to the fountain,” Undine continues, and Kokoro refocuses on the thing oozing across the pavement below. “I should be able to divert the water and surround it and do the thing,” she says, miming raising the bubble up high and smashing it back down onto the ground. 

“Yeah, this one looks pretty splatty,” Kokoro agrees. “'The Thing' is always cool to see. You should probably come up with an attack name for it you don't totally hate, before Daylight Update picks something and you get stuck with it.” 

“Maybe the training group can help with that tomorrow? For now, let's make sure that thing doesn't get to gross anybody else out.”

“Go ahead, Curls,” she says. “I've got your back.” 

Undine grins back at her before she draws a waterslide out of thin air and rides it down to street level, and Kokoro tries to convince herself that it's only the distance to the ground that makes her stomach swoop as she shinnies down the drainpipe to join her.

The plan is simple, and it seems like the monster is, too. At least at first.

It doesn't respond to Undine's approach, just goes on stroking its snaky little arms over the rest of its throbbing body. Even when a sphere of water takes shape and hovers above it, it doesn't seem to react. The bubble drops onto the monster and reforms around it with a splooshing sound, and it's only when Undine has begun to lift the whole mass up that the thing breaks into action.

One tentacle, thin and flailing, punctures the bubble and shoots out to wind itself around Undine's arm, smearing sticky-looking slime over the cuff of her white glove and the brown skin above it. 

“You okay?” Kokoro asks, stamping a boot down on the wriggling arm, pinning it to the ground and keeping one eye on the thing, alert for further strikes.

Undine grimaces. “Yeah, it doesn't hurt so far. I just can't really throw it around while it's still attached to me.”

“Let's see what we can do about that, then,” she says, grinning conspiratorially and raising both fists, feeling the power rise and settle and spark as her attack charges to full strength. The thing's stringy limb is a weird target: skinny and still and stretched taut, but when she unloads a pair of punches, pinching it between her fists, it severs with a gross (but, really, still pretty satisfying) squelch. 

The bit of it that's still wrapped around Undine's biceps sloughs itself off and tries to slither off across the paving stones, and Kokoro stays busy stamping the squirm out of it while Undine does The Thing before the monster gets lively again. 

When the sphere slams back to earth, it flattens out into a mini flash-flood across the plaza, an inch of water, cloudy with dissolving bits of monster, swirling over the stones and around their boots. 

Kokoro throws her arms over her head in victory. “Still cool! Even if it doesn't have a name yet.”

Undine smiles bashfully and starts directing clean water off of the surrounding ground and back over the lip of the fountain to refill the basin. “Thanks for the save.”

“Any time, Curls,” she says with a wink, and this time she doesn't kid herself that she's hoping for something in return: a wink or a giggle or a blush or a spark of something bright, hot, curious in those blue-and-pink eyes. 

What she gets is a gasp, as Undine raises a gloved hand to her face and the water sloshes suddenly into the fountain.

“Doing okay?” she asks, flirting pushed aside by concern.

Undine nods and straightens her back and brings the water back to a gentle, orderly flow. “Yes. I think. Felt a little funny for a second there.” She brings a hand up and smooths it over her hair, rubs at the back of her neck. “I think it's past now.”

“Good.” Kokoro smiles and claps her on the back. “We've got time to beat up lots more monsters.”

“Maybe I'll return the favor and rescue you from an eye guy.” 

Undine is smiling at her again, and Kokoro almost says something awkward – like _It's a date!_ in a weird too-high voice – but at the last moment, she's saved by Undine bowing her head with a shaky breath. 

“Hey,” she says, and moves closer to rub a line down her back, flinching a little when Undine gasps and loses her transformation. In a flash, Alchemical Water is gone, replaced by the Undine she knows from the lunchroom and the hallways of Future's Promise: pretty and petite and looking way too vulnerable to be out on the streets after curfew.

She shakes her head, puts on a determined expression, and transforms again, Alchemical Water's sausage curls and pinafore and gloves and boots all sliding on like armor. “I'm okay,” she says firmly, squaring up her shoulders and going back to work. 

And she is, for a moment. The fountain is full again with pristine, sparkling water, all traces of the monster swept out of the plaza, and Kokoro is about to suggest another circuit of the rooftops when Undine's transformation fails again and she goes to her knees on the pavement before Kokoro can catch her. 

“Something's not right,” she says, stooping down next to Undine and casting her gaze around for threats. “Need to get you to a Safety Center.” 

Undine shakes her head and uses a hand on Kokoro's shoulder to push herself to her feet. The fall has torn a jagged hole in the knee of her grey tights, and blood seeps from a scrape underneath. “No. Too many non-magical people. Can't expose them if this is something catching." With a frown of deep concentration, she transforms again, but this time Alchemical Water's skirt is wrinkled and her curls are a little flat. "I know a place.”

* * *

“Sylvie used to arrange for camera crews to hide out here to take footage of our patrols,” Undine says, crossing the threshold into the big, echo-y room while Kokoro makes sure the inner barrier seals back over the door behind them. For good measure, she takes off her scarf and knots it carefully around the handles of the twin doors. 

Even through the inner barrier, moonlight and streetlight filter in through the high windows. There's a great view of the wide street running down to one of the city's prettiest parks; it's a perfect angle to shoot a highlight reel, like the one her agent keeps bugging her about recording as an exclusive for the Heartful Punch Fan Club. 

Undine perches on a couch positioned in a shaft of moonlight and sighs, letting her transformation fall away again. Her hands fidget a little with her shredded tights. “I'll be okay here until the barrier resets,” she says. “You can finish your patrol.”

“Aw, Curls,” she turns away from the window and crosses to flop down next to her on the sofa, “punching monsters is really, really fun, but you don't really think I'm just gonna ditch you here. Right?”

“No, I guess not,” Undine says, and she smiles, but she's still squirming uncomfortably in her seat, picking at her tights and tugging at the neck of her soft blue sweaterdress. When she raises her eyes to meet Kokoro's, they're not quite focused, pupils dark and wide, surrounded by only a narrow ring of familiar blue. 

Kokoro frowns, and lets her own transformation slip, carrying her heavy-duty gauntlets with it, leaving her with a bare hand to press to Undine's forehead. Undine takes a sharp, shallow breath at the touch to her hot, hot skin.

“You're burning up,” she says, and sweeps a stray curl back from Undine's forehead. “Maybe it would be better if you lost some layers for now? Since we can't exactly open a window?”

Undine frowns. “Maybe that would help,” she says, then kicks off her flats and wiggles her newly-freed stocking feet. “My skin feels too... something.” She gathers the loose curls up off of her neck and turns partway around, offering Kokoro her unguarded back, where a delicate zipper snakes down between her shoulder blades. “Can you undo me?”

“Ah, yeah,” Kokoro says, feeling her own face go a little warm, “yeah, sure!”

She tugs the zipper down slowly, trying to avoid both snagging the knit dress in its teeth and letting her own hands linger too long along the curve of Undine's spine. 

“Thanks,” she says softly, and rises without looking back to step out of the dress, leaving her in a pale blue full slip and her ruined tights. “That's a little better.” She folds the dress over the arm of the couch and, after a long moment of shifting her weight and worrying at the lacy strap of her slip, reaches up beneath her hem to strip the tights off as well. 

Even though the slip isn't really any smaller than the workout gear she sometimes wears to training group, Kokoro can't help noticing how long Undine's legs are, how toned her arms are getting, and she has to make herself look somewhere else before she gets caught staring and makes things weird between them. 

She's looking super-intently out at the view when Undine settles back beside her, folding her legs restlessly up onto the cushion. 

“It's quiet out there,” she offers. 

“Guess that's good?” Undine shifts again, like she can't quite get comfortable, and she sounds a little breathless. “Since the patrols are down two magical girls.” 

“There's not too long until the barrier resets,” she says. “Then we'll head back in and you can have somebody take a look at this.” She taps a finger against Undine's knee, just above where it's scraped up. 

Undine gasps and gives a jolt at her touch.

“Sorry! Sorry! Did I hurt you?”

“No.” Undine pulls away, shaking her head. “No. That's not it at all. It... felt better for a second.” She pauses to rub her hands up and down her bare arms, as though she's cold, though Kokoro doesn't think that can be so. “When we were touching. I didn't feel so... off.”

“Oh.” She pauses. Things have gone a little weird between them, but at least it's not totally her fault. She reaches out and closes her hand over Undine's. “How's this?”

Undine looks up, eyes deep and dark, and bites her bottom lip. “Good.”

* * *

“Please.” Undine pants. “Don't stop. Please.” She tugs at the straps of her slip, dragging the top down to pool around her waist. Her bra is sweet white cotton, and her nipples are drawn into stiff peaks underneath. 

Kokoro forces her gaze up, though it only lands instead on the graceful curve of Undine's neck, the sharp angles of her mark drawn across her heaving chest and pointing down toward the crease between her breasts. 

“Please,” she gasps again, and Kokoro reaches out to trace hesitant fingertips over the blue lines of her sigil. Undine shudders and shifts across the sofa, suddenly straddling Kokoro's lap, tugging clumsily at the buttons of her white shirt. 

Kokoro hadn't mean to for it to go this far, to turn into whatever it's becoming. But after the relief of that first touch, it seems like Undine needs more and more – more pressure, more friction, more skin-on-skin – to take the edge off, and Kokoro doesn't know how to stop. Not when all of Undine's words have turned into _please_ and she can feel the heat of her as she grinds down against her thigh with a shuddery sob of a breath. 

“Let me help,” she says, and undoes the last buttons of her shirt with fingers slightly steadier than Undine's. 

Undine pushes the shirt back off of her shoulders and leans into her, drawing them closer together. Undine's chest presses against her own, warm and supple beneath the soft fabric of her bra, rising and falling with the fast breath falling softly against her cheek, and Kokoro knows she should stop. She's the clearheaded one. She should resist; Undine wouldn't be asking for any of this if she were in her right mind. A better friend wouldn't give in like this, no matter how hard it is to say no to this. She should pull herself away and go find a healer. But then, Undine rocks her hips down against her with a broken moan, and she knows that she can't bear for anyone else to see her this way. 

“It's okay,” she soothes, and – even though she shouldn't, even though she knows it's going to be weird for both of them once this passes – leans in to press a kiss into the hollow of her collarbone. She can taste the salt on her skin, and she knows she's already missed her chance to stop them both before this goes too far. 

Undine shifts over her, rocking her hips in a telling rhythm, and she's not sure what she's doing with her hands, until she moves again to cast her bra carelessly to the floor behind them. She leans in, and that presses the softness of her breasts against Kokoro's chest, while Kokoro strokes a line down the hot, hot skin of her back, bare all the way down to where her slip bunches up in a puddle of silky fabric at her waist.

“Please,” she says again, one hand snaking into Kokoro's hair. “I'm sorry. Please.” 

Undine is rubbing against her fast and jerky now. Even through the material of her own skirt, Kokoro can feel the slick heat at her core, can feel her clench against nothing and shudder in release. She kisses her through it, feels the flutter of her pulse under her mouth and waits for her breathing to slow. 

Waits for the moment when Undine will come back to herself and realize what they've done – recognize the advantage Kokoro has taken – and pull away. 

Only, instead, Undine breathes out another sob and says, “Please. I need –” She tugs ineffectually at the strap of Kokoro's bra, the only thing between them from the waist up. “Please.”

She hesitates for a moment. Until now, she's nearly been able to fool herself that she's doing only enough to help Undine through whatever this is. That no matter what she's ever let herself imagine between them late at night, she's not seizing her own pleasure from her friend's predicament. But now, she feels the way her nipples strain against the fabric, aching to be touched, and the corresponding throb between her legs, and she knows that, once she does this, there will be no denying – to herself or anyone else – that she's getting off. 

Undine rocks helplessly against her, and her choice is made. As she pulls the sports bra up over her head and tosses it after Undine's, she realizes the decision was already made the first time she touched her. 

She kisses Undine on the mouth this time, both of them breathing hard and making small noises against each other's lips as their sweaty skin slides together. Undine reaches up and touches her face, pushes her sweaty bangs off of her forehead, and whimpers into the kiss, and Kokoro can feel the pounding of her own heart in her ears and her throat and her fingertips where she's grasping Undine's hips tight enough to bruise a more delicate girl. 

Undine shifts again and shoves the bottom edge of her slip up, turning it into a belt of sweaty silken fabric at her waist. She lifts Kokoro's hand from her hip and guides it beneath the elastic band of the panties underneath. She's soaked through the material, slick and wet against Kokoro's thigh where her own skirt has ridden up as a result of Undine's writhing, and Kokoro's fingers glide easily against her, inside her, over the firm nub that makes her shudder and gasp. 

She presses her mouth to the point where two blue lines meet on Undine's chest and curves her fingers, touching her the way she sometimes touches herself alone in her dorm room at the break of dawn. It's the same way she's touched herself while imagining Undine's hands and body and voice, and her face burns with shame and want as Undine's breath hitches in her throat. Her spine bends in a graceful, desperate arch as her walls clench and spasm around Kokoro's fingers.

She tips her head up to kiss the underside of Undine's jaw and mouth at the faint sweat that's broken out on her neck. She tries – and miserably fails – to put aside the insistent throb of need between her own thighs as she starts to slide her hand out from beneath Undine's sodden panties.

“Wait,” Undine says, her voice rough and wrecked the way it had been the night she'd cried on the bleachers at the athletic track. “Not yet. Please.” She reaches down between their bodies and laces their fingers together. 

Their hands slide against each other in the slickness that still coats Kokoro's fingers and palm, and she lets Undine position their hands once more, hard and flush against the wet, shuddering heat at the core of her. Lets Undine reposition herself until she's straddling only one of her legs and rutting against their joined hands, riding the heel of Kokoro's palm while her knee slots between her thighs, dragging against the damp fabric of her panties with every rock of her body. 

Undine's head tips forward helplessly, her breath coming hot and fast while her mouth moves restlessly down Kokoro's throat. There's a graze of teeth at her neck, sharp and bright, and the hot press of an open-mouthed kiss, and this time, when Undine tips over the edge, Kokoro falls right behind her. 

Her hips jerk upward, and she manages to bite down on the cry that tries to rip out of her, turning it into something quiet and too soft. Undine pulls back just a little – just enough that the moonlight picks up the sheen of sweat on her brown skin and the way her curls have wilted around her face and her dazed eyes on Kokoro's face.

“The time is now two a.m..” The loudspeaker jolts them both, prompts them to separate awkwardly, to gather their ordinary clothes back up and wordlessly transform. “The inner barrier will deactivate shortly. Please make sure the streets are clear of monsters, and take care on your way home.”

* * *

Kokoro wears a scarf to class the next morning, wound around her neck and tucked beneath the collar of her shirt. A girl with healing magic could have easily dealt with the mark there, but she might have wanted the story of where it came from first. She's spent enough time around Bud to understand what powers the Future's Promise rumor mill. 

Luckily, she's mostly a good enough student that none of the faculty reprimand her for the slight dress code infraction, or for the way her mind wanders during class, drifting guiltily back to last night's patrol just as her fingertips keep drifting back to press absently at the concealed bruise on her neck. She knows that the lunch group will have no such forbearance, and, like the coward she's never let herself be before, she chugs down a protein drink at her locker and spends the rest of lunch hour hiding in the library, staring at the pages of a biography of Talauma Docker without taking in a word of information. 

She almost bails on training group, pushing the next time she has to look Undine in the face further down the road. Only almost, though. She really needs to sweat this out with a long session in the gym; it's the one place where most of her problems start to make sense. 

Plus, she knows she's being dumb – hiding from her friend (ex-friend? more-than-friend?) now, when she's going to going to take a run at however many monsters later on.

Undine smiles at her uncertainly in the weight room before they both dive into the warm-up workout. If the other girls notice how awkward they are, they're too busy trying to keep up to comment on it. 

When it's time to divide up for transformed drills, Undine is, uncharacteristically, the first to speak up. “HP? Could we do some target practice?”

“I – yeah, sure.” 

The others split off in their own directions, and she and Undine head to the courtyard outside the cafeteria in slightly awkward silence. 

“I missed you at lunch,” Undine offers.

She cringes. “Yeah. I was...” She almost lies, but that seems especially terrible – worse than just dishonest – after everything they know about each other now. “I was being a chicken.”

“Happens to the best of us, I guess.” Undine says, and reaches up to fidget with her ponytail. Kokoro catches herself watching the way the muscles of her arms shift with the movement. “Can we talk? About what happened?” 

The sun is already beginning to set, but Kokoro is still sure the flush must show in her cheeks for anyone who cares to look. “If you're sure you wouldn't rather forget,” she says, and tries to laugh it off. 

“I wouldn't,” Undine says quickly, and seizes Kokoro's wrist in one small hand. “I mean, I wouldn't necessarily have wanted it to happen the way it did...” 

“But you're okay with it?” She can't tell in the deepening darkness whether Undine might be blushing now, too, and she resists the urge to reach out and touch her cheek to gauge it.

Undine nods, and moves her hand from Kokoro's wrist to take her hand. “And I might like it to happen again. Someday. If that's something you'd be okay with?” 

She laughs, loose and lightheaded with relief, and tugs Undine back into her arms, dropping a kiss into the curls at the crown of her head. “Any time. Just say when, Curls.”


End file.
